March 12, 2016

Keith Lott analyzes three sleepers poised to break out for fantasy baseball in 2016. RotoBaller has all the best sleepers and breakouts.

This article first appeared on wetalkfantasysports.com by Jason Johnson. You can find him on twitter @y2trips.

I don’t like to use the term sleepers when thinking about players. To me a sleeper is simply someone that I expect to greatly outperform their projected ADP. These players are players that I’m very high on going into the season.

Conversely, there will always be a few players where I feel their ADP is way too high and they have little to no chance to live up to that return on investment.

As we lead up to the start of the 2016 season, here are a few players that I’m quite high on compared to their current ADP.  In part 2 of this article, we'll look at players I'm down on compared to current ADP.

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Josh Reddick

Ranking: 137 | ADP: 203

Going back a few years now, Josh Reddick has been a bit of an under-valued outfielder. Entering his 8th season in the majors, he's really only has a chance to show off his potential a few times. Twice in his career has he posted seasons of 145+ games, but when he has... he’s shined. Much of this has been because of opportunity. He was the 4th guy in line in Boston, and even platooned a bit while in Oakland. In his first full season in 2012 he exploded with offensive production posting 32 HR's, 85 RBI's, and 11 SB's. Granted I don't expect him to return to that level, but I do think he could repeat his modest numbers of last season.

In 2015 he hit .272 while belting 20 HR's and swiping 10 bags. Not elite, but very good for a 4th or 5th OF. If you look at some of the underlying sabermetrics behind these numbers, you can deduce that they are very repeatable. Last year he also posted the lowest K% of his career (11.2%), highest BB/K ratio of his career (0.75), and second highest HR/FB ratio of his career only behind his massive 2012 season. Mash these together and it tells me that he had a much improved eye at the plate. While .272 was well above his career mark of .251, I leaning towards him repeating last year's success rather than regressing back to the mean. Reddick turns 29 this month and should have a few more good seasons in his prime.

One of the best things about Reddick is his draft day price. Current ADP numbers have him a little over 200th overall. If you're telling me that I can have a potential 20/10 guy at that point in the draft, sign me up now! I think there's more upside to these numbers as well. He should hit 4th in the Oakland lineup and the recent addition on Khris Davis should only help him see better pitches and have added RBI opportunities.

Please come join me on the Josh Reddick bandwagon.

Matt Duffy

Ranking: 195 | ADP: 146

Matt Duffy is another player that I'm very high on this year, not because I think he's going to take a huge step forward this season, but because I think he will be doing much of the same as last year. In 2015 is had a very well rounded year in his first full season at the big league level. He's hitting in a good Giants lineup, with potential to hit near the top of the order. He doesn't have fantastic power or speed, however he hit 12 HR's and stole 12 bases last year. Couple that with his 77 runs, 77 RBI's, and .290 average and you have an above average producing 3B across the board.

Duffy isn't going to rise into the elite group of 3B, and but I think he can do much of the same as he did last year. He has a very good eye with a K% of 15%. Last year his ground ball % was very high which is something you don't want to see, but even in spite of that he was able to hit .295. If he can turn some of those into line drives, the average is only going to go up. He doesn't have the makeup for a big power hitter; however he does have enough pop to get the ball out. He just turned 25 and there's still upside as he grows into his prime years. The same goes for his speed. He store 20+ bases in the minors multiple times and was usually efficient. I can see both his HR's and SB's increase and if the average can remain above .280, that's essentially the 5 tool player that anyone would love to take in the mid rounds of a draft.

The best part about Duffy is his ADP. I think it's very possibly that with his consistency, we could be looking at a five tool top 10 3B this season. I have him creeping into my top 80 overall player list. That said, his ADP right now is around 150. Now, I expect that can rise as we lead up to the start of the regular season, but even still it's not likely going to rise to my projection.

I see myself having a ton of shares of Matt Duffy this year and expect to see a bit more power, speed, and overall production out of this under-the-radar gem.

Josh Harrison

Ranking: 212 | ADP: 215

Josh Harrison fits into the exact mold of a mid-round player that is often overlooked. He doesn't have a ton of power nor is he going to contend for the league lead in steals. He does however do a bit of everything well.

In 2014 he played nearly a full season compiling 520 AB's. His slash line was very good and looked like this:

• Average .315; Runs 77; RBI 52; HR 13; SB 18

While none of these numbers are elite, they would have compiled a high overall value for any roto team.
In 2015 however, he missed a number of games to repair a torn thumb ligament and only totaled 418 AB's. His slash line for 2015 looked like this:

• Average .287; Runs 57; RBI 28; HR 4; SB 10

Runs and steals were close to on pace, however power and average was down. While, some of that could have been regression, I tend to think Harrison was battling through the thumb injury before finally having surgery in July. He also struggled once he came back from the surgery to regain his full swing.

Thumb injuries have been well documented to be difficult to recover from quickly. In 2011, Baseball Prospectus wrote a nice article here detailing the impact a thumb injury can have on a player. I feel this accounted for a lot of the drop in both his contact and power for Harrison. Here are some advanced stats showing the breakdown drops in production from 2014 to 2015:

2014: ISO .175; FB% 38.7; HR/FB ratio 7.7; K% 14.7; GB% 37.3; Hard hit ball % 31.8;

2015: ISO .103; FB% 33.5; HR/FB ratio 3.4; K% 15.8; GB% 41.6; Hard hit ball % 8.7

When you start to look at this comparison as a whole, something caused the regression. To me, it doesn't make sense that a 27 year old coming into his prime would fall off the table this dramatically. Having an entire off season to recover from the thumb injury should prime Harrison for a bounce back campaign. He may not necessarily reach the levels he did in 2014, but I expect him to come close.

Right now, Harrison's current ADP is in the early 200's. I feel I was a bit conservative with my projections for him this upcoming season and even conservative, I have him as a top 150 overall player. I think the upside could be a 10 HR, 20 SB, .300 AVG hitter that scores a ton of runs atop the PIT lineup. He is absolutely someone I will be targeting as a value for my teams this season.

Stay tuned as I dig into three players I'm not as high on tomorrow...

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